


Young God

by Galpalkru



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Halsey a f, I wrote this last night and didn't despite it so here we go, Not like relationship angst, Tumblr minifics, like existential life angst, no bechloe are basically cute little puppies in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 02:23:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4688930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galpalkru/pseuds/Galpalkru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick one-shot inspired by Halsey's 'Young God.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Young God

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this randomly last night and posted it on Tumblr but here it is too because why the hell not? Enjoy.

There was something equally exhilarating and perilous about standing on a peak.

 

Maybe the exhilaration arose from the peril, but, in any case, they were inextricably intertwined. Even more so, this peak arose with shocking velocity, disgrace turning into national renown in what felt like an instant.

 

But, in reality, it was nothing close to an instant, and heading into what was her third extra year of college, Chloe was treading water in a ceaseless stream of time and friends and a world that she desperately tried to keep in one place. There was a drop at the end of that water, some cliff that she’d watched many others successfully navigate and even heard promising tales of the pool at the end of the fall, but she’d take the familiar peril at the edge over the uncertainty on the other side.

 

Besides, it all fit at this point. Any teetering at the pinnacle was offset by the balance of Beca and that focused determination that was all too often misinterpreted as a disaffected manner. They’d fallen into their respective places easily; Chloe was the endless font of energy, the recruiting face and the sweet smile that allowed her to bend anyone to her will without them even knowing it, and Beca stood in the back, the cool, brooding artist who’d created the sound that left all listeners breathless. Only Chloe knew that this brooding demeanor gave way within about five seconds to a tiny dweeb who would come sprinting into her room at 3 AM, bouncing on her bed until Chloe accepted the offered pair of headphones because she just _had_ to hear what Beca had been up working on.

 

Of course, there were more secrets between Chloe and Beca than just Beca’s hidden appreciation for Kesha. It was another pattern they’d fallen into naturally, starting a few months into Beca’s sophomore year as the pressure of running the Bellas without Aubrey constantly cracking the whip caught up to them. They’d stayed late one night after practice, Chloe shifting restlessly from one foot to the other as she mentally plotted choreography with the sound of the sectionals mix on repeat, the sound of the sectionals mix blasting on repeat from the laptop before her.

 

Beca was lying across a pair of folding chairs, eyes closed as she idly twirled a pencil between her fingers like a baton. She really didn’t need to stay, and Chloe had assured her of this again and again, but Beca had rolled her eyes and stressed that they were _co_ -captains. “You pulled me into this Bella shit, dude,” she’d said, that maddening half-smirk playing across her lips. “I don’t half-ass things once I’m committed.”

 

So she’d reclined there quietly for the last hour, the only sounds being her occasional dramatic huffs as if she wanted to remind Chloe that yes, she still did exist. Of course, Chloe humored all of these unsubtle attempts at attention-grabbing as she always did, slowly turning from her laptop’s resting place on the piano with one hand on her hip, waiting until she had Beca’s eyes to shoot her the most lascivious wink she could manage.

 

It was around 11 PM when Chloe became wholly convinced that she was hopeless and lost as a choreographer, throwing up her hands with a groan. “This is just not working.” There was a slight creak before she heard Beca’s light footsteps falling behind her. “I don’t want to complain, because the mix is great, and I’m not saying anything about that or you and it’s honestly just me, but—“

 

“Slow down there, Beale,” Beca chuckled, hand landing on top of Chloe’s to still its drumming on the piano. With a sigh, Chloe turned around, crossing her arms in front of her body as Beca shook her head slowly. “You’ll work it out. You always do. And as for the mix, you really don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings, okay?”

 

“No, but I just mean…you’re so talented.” Beca scoffed, opening her mouth to respond until the rare furrow formed in Chloe’s brow. “And I just don’t want to hold us back or anything.”

 

“ _You_ holding us back?” Beca playfully tapped Chloe in the stomach, and the taller girl exhaled sharply in the hope that she could somehow cover up the automatic shiver that mere contact with Beca Mitchell sent throughout her body. “I’ve seen past Bella choreography before you got in there. It’s…something different.”

 

Chloe giggled. “The syncopated booty shake did get a bit dated after a while,” she muttered.

 

“Exactly.” Beca’s eyes were intoxicating, hanging on Chloe’s lips to the point where she wasn’t completely sure that there wasn’t actual, physical contact there. The stare was always heavy and direct in these moments, so intense that Chloe couldn’t tell if it was purposeful or not. “We’re the new Bellas, and, personally, I think the choreography is aca-awesome.”

 

And Chloe would have pestered Beca right at that moment and surely for weeks after over the use of ‘aca’ as a prefix if the younger girl’s hands hadn’t landed on the piano behind Chloe. One slow step forward closed the gap between them, Chloe’s body pressed against the instrument and the tips of their noses side by side. “Well, I am pretty confident about all that,” Chloe murmured, highly aware of the shuddering, broken breaths between her words.

 

“You should be.” That weighted gaze from the last few months was suddenly replaced by Beca’s lips on Chloe’s own, slow and testing as if she was waiting for some sort of permission that Chloe gave by wrapping her hands around the back of Beca’s neck, sucking on her bottom lip before pulling back with a light popping noise.

 

Beca’s pupils were blown and wild, and she swallowed heavily as she stared upwards. “Was that okay?” The same tremors that had plagued Chloe’s voice filled Beca’s, Chloe soothing the fear between those parted lips by dragging Beca in close again. Beca’s hands found the small of Chloe’s back, the kiss deepening as months of tension and reluctant movie sessions became tongues and teeth dragging against the curves of their necks, hands running up sides and fumbling clumsily at clothes in a desperate rush.

 

So Chloe learned quickly that Beca was talented in more than just music, hands twisted in the brunette’s hair and nails dragging along her back as they used their discarded shirts as any sort of soft surface against the ground. Watching Beca come apart beneath her soon after quickly took the place of hoisting the nationals trophy as Chloe’s favorite Bellas-related memory, Beca’s eyes fluttering closed and gasping out high, breathy moans stifled only when she bit down on Chloe’s shoulder.

 

It quickly became a ritual, Chloe’s new religion of hidden touches under the dinner table in the Bella house, needy fingers and mouths during the increasingly frequent breaks in practice, and stolen moments in back rooms at Treblemaker parties, Chloe a pleading supplicant to the girl between her legs. There were times when Chloe would maybe, slightly exaggerate her stress level, arms fluttering and tears pooling in her eyes as she waited for that somehow both concerned and wanting gaze from Beca, followed moments later by her co-captain calling a bathroom or lunch break (one time at about 10:14 AM, drawing particularly pointed stares from Stacie).

 

Soon enough, however, they didn’t even bother to hold up the pretense of stress relief. It was their victory celebration, whether for finishing a particularly long essay or a successful performance, their method of quickly (or often drawn out) ending any arguments, their compromise when Beca just couldn’t sit through yet another movie. It was theirs, it was them, and it drowned out any thoughts or sounds of the passing world around them that Chloe worked anxiously to avoid.

 

In that way, standing backstage right before the Kennedy Center Performance was beyond bittersweet. It was the culmination of everything they’d accomplished, the new Bellas legendary in the annals of Barden a capella history, and Chloe and Beca had worked tirelessly for months to push the team to the point where it would take a Janet Jackson-level wardrobe malfunction for _anything_ to go wrong. They were going to nail it, and then they’d clinch that last nationals trophy for a perfect set of four years in the Bella books.

 

And then they’d all be gone. Sure, Chloe could probably smile sweetly enough at her parents and stress the importance of a comprehensive education and drag out her time at Barden for another year if she wanted to. But Stacie was off to med school, CR had some songwriting job lined up in New York, and no one knew precisely what Amy was doing. But Beca? It was another mystery, but Chloe knew there were no limits where Beca was concerned. Beca would leap off that edge into the murky waters below with a smirk and a cocky salute. Chloe just wasn’t sure where this left her, but, pulled by Stacie into position on the stage, she could at least revel on that high peak she knew so well for one of the last times.

 

But then the peak was crumbling below her, and even that exhilarating high that had surrounded Chloe during performances became suffocating. She sprinted off stage as Cynthia Rose and Stacie worked to release the struggling Amy from her overly exposed perch above, pushing past gaping cameramen and caterers before slamming the first door she could find closed behind her.

 

The tears came with Chloe’s head between her knees, fingers digging against the material of her pants as her body shook against the wall. All it took was that one sanctuary, that one place that Chloe knew to disappear for her to realize that her high point was nothing but a poorly constructed mound of denial and falsehoods, flimsy and all too flammable with god knows what keeping the flames away for years, preserving Chloe in her dangling state above the crashing rapids of reality and life below. One torn jumpsuit had been enough to leave Chloe with nothing but three a capella trophies and far too many piles of repetitive Russian Lit notes. Not exactly what you’d call a lot of direction.

 

Her eyes snapped up when she felt a hand land on her knee, fingers slipping between her own as she met midnight eyes barely discernible from the dark of the room around them. “Chloe.” It came out like a breath, as if it was so commonly murmured by its speaker that it was a natural part of life-sustaining respiration. “Chloe, it’s okay.”

 

Beca nudged Chloe’s knees apart, sliding between and cupping the sides of Chloe’s face with her hands, soft soothing circles from Beca’s fingertips against her dampened cheeks. Chloe’s hands found Beca’s shoulders, rumpling the jacket beneath them as she grasped for some remaining, consistent reality in her world. “Hey, hey, hey, Chlo.” Beca’s thumb tilted Chloe’s chin up until their eyes were level. “I’m here. I’m here, it’s fine, we’re okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

 

“How can you say that?” Chloe wailed. “Of all the times for that to…national television, Beca! In front of the president and Shonda Rhimes!”

 

Beca snorted, placing a light kiss on Chloe’s forehead. “Please, I think Shonda’s the least of our concerns. Worst comes to worst, she’s a bit too traumatized and has to cancel Grey’s Anatomy.”

 

“ _Don’t_ even joke about that!”

 

Quirking her mouth slightly, Beca sighed. “Okay, so we go viral, maybe get yelled at by Gail and her wonderfully misogynistic counterpart for a bit, and then we shut them all up by kicking ass at nationals. It’s nothing that we can’t handle. I mean, think of where you and Aubrey were at when I joined.”

 

“That’s different,” Chloe murmured, eyes dropping to the floor.

 

“Chlo.” And Beca waited, even as Chloe could feel those eyes insistent and worried against her brow. Beca had always been good at that, giving Chloe space in those rare moments that she needed it, looking past her natural tendency to only paste a wider smile and busy herself with other people’s problems to avoid her own.

 

With a painful swallow, Chloe looked up. “I just…last time, when everything went wrong, I was just going to graduate. Or even when I wasn’t, I had people here. I mean, obviously Aubrey leaving wasn’t easy, but...I wasn’t going to be alone. And this time, I mean, there’s not really an option. And I could stick around but I’d just be that weird girl in her mid-twenties with no one to talk to and I’m not even sure how long I can actually compete on the collegiate a capella level before it’s considered cheating and…”

 

She shook her head slowly, the crease in Beca’s brow turning to warmth and concern as she only leaned in closer. “The Bellas have been my life for the past six years,” Chloe said. “And all this…it’s making me realize that maybe that’s not the sort of thing you can actually build a real life on. I just—I don’t know what else I can do besides this, and it scares me.”

 

“Well, that’s ridiculous.” Chloe’s eyebrows shot up, mouth dropping open before Beca pressed a finger over her lips. “Okay, maybe that came out wrong, but are you really trying to tell me that you think you can’t do anything other than synchronized lady dancing to Mariah Carey chart-toppers?”

 

“I think we’ve moved a bit beyond tha—“

 

“Uh uh,” Beca replied. “Chloe Beale, you are like the most incredible person I’ve ever met. You’re…okay, this would be easier with music or something, but, um, you’re kind of like a force of nature. You’re more charismatic than anyone really has a right to be, you have this weird thing where you actually like people and helping them, and, as Amy would put it, lesbehonest, just look in the mirror for one second.”

 

Chloe sniffled as the beginnings of a smile curved her lips. “But really, Chlo. I’ve seen you do this a million times, with the Bellas and otherwise. You find people, and you know what they want and need and what they can do even before they do or even if they really, truly don’t want to see it. And you just guide them there, support them and make it impossible for them to do anything but rise to the occasion. You expect everything from the people you care about, because you’re going to help them get there.”

 

Beca pulled Chloe’s hands up to sit with her own on her knees, squeezing gently as Chloe enjoyed one of the rare, secret, Beca beams. “I mean, I’m speaking from experience here,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. She placed a light kiss on Chloe’s lips before leaning back again. “Chloe, you can do anything. Really, graduation’s not some endless tunnel without light at the end or some shit. And, if you’re worried about not having anyone after, well…I kinda like how you make me better, if you feel like staying around and keeping that up.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah, you nerd.” Beca’s thumbs brushed the tears off Chloe’s cheek. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

 

And they stayed like that until Amy kicked the door open, bottom half wrapped in an American flag and shouting that she’d “found the aca-lesbians in the closet.” Beca pulled Chloe up to her feet, slipping an arm around her waist because who really cared at this point. Cheek to cheek, shoulders pressed up against each other as they made their way through the performance hall, even with a security detail to hold back the reporters, Chloe couldn’t stop smiling. Yeah, she wasn’t on that peak anymore, but damn if it still wasn’t exhilarating.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what that was. I don't even know what I am. What are we? I think, therefore I am? I am become death, destroyer of worlds? Four score and seven years ago? Whatever. As always, on Tumblr as bicamitchell. Come yell at me about these adorable idiots


End file.
